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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28452759">Senses, Affections, Passions</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoJo7_7/pseuds/JoJo7_7'>JoJo7_7</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Merchant of Venice - Shakespeare</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Antisemitism, David Suchet’s Shylock, F/M, Ghetto, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I Wrote This While Listening to Mor Karbasi, Leah gets developed, Sephardim, This is my favorite character in all of Merchant, Venezia | Venice</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 22:47:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,109</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28452759</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoJo7_7/pseuds/JoJo7_7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>This is just my take on the infuriatingly controversial yet some how identifiable and most definitely villainous Shylock.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Leah/Shylock (Merchant of Venice)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Senses, Affections, Passions</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wrote this while listening to the music of Mor Karbasi, specifically the song En la Kaye de mi Chikez. I don’t speak Ladino so I do not know for sure what it is about, but I know a bit of Spanish and I caught words like “heart” and “solitude” so I think it captures the feeling pretty well. You can listen to it here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f-90iklnnZw&amp;list=PLi4llpqdjbRlxtDE4bMImVPME-TTGg5or&amp;index=20</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You are a ray of sunlight beaming through reams of colored silk. I watch you through the metal latticework that divides our synagogue and now you are the object of my prayers. Oh, that you will be mine some day, a Spanish beauty from across the sea, an exotic ship with goods I will buy, by my very flesh I would put on the line for you.</p><p>I repeat your name in your head, and it is enough to make me smile, as I walk through the cramped alleyway, or I work the Rialto. Money flows in and out of my hands. I don my red cap, leave the side walk at the approaching steps, I return to the alley. Spit, menacing dogs, through it all I smile.</p><p>  I am by no means poor but I am not well regarded . My temper, however, was one side of the coin. The other was my well tempered wealth.. But by this work I will turn silver into gold, I will gain money as to secure your flesh. One day my heart will belong to you, Ani L’Dodi, L’Dodi Li, but I must make sure you will want for nothing when that time comes.</p><p>Our time will come.</p><p> </p><p>  We are sitting on a small bench in the small park of our small ghetto. There is not enough expression for all the love I have for you.</p><p> Evidently you feel the same, despite my reputation, my heavy face, my shadowed eyes. It is because you are the only one who knows my other side, the other side of me that bares his flesh to you.</p><p> I am telling you, softly, of the news of the Rialto. You listen to me. To have someone listen! I am stalling, and you know it. I have planned to ask you for years. But now, I am afraid.</p><p>But you, Leah, Leah, you take my hand and wrap in around something. I look to your eyes, your beautiful Sephardic eyes, and you tell me to look what I am holding.</p><p> It is a turquoise ring, an Ottoman turquoise. I am speechless. You kiss me. I ask you, “How?” How could you love me?</p><p> You tell me of your cousin in Thessaloniki who obtained the ring for you, how you arranged its transportation to Venice. You could be a merchant yourself, if only you were a male gentile. But I would not have to any other way, Leah.</p><p> </p><p>  “Are you happy?” I often asked you, terrified of the answer. But you always turned to me and smiled. </p><p> “Of course I am.” you would say, curling your hair round your fingers. </p><p>  And still, I was afraid that your were not satisfied with me, that this beautiful vessel I had would run aground in the sea, gold scattered to the waves.</p><p>  There came a day when I asked you my constant question. You grabbed my hand, fingers slender against my palm. You pressed it to your stomach. I felt your cargo, I felt in you the investment that was further validated, gain upon gain!</p><p>“Yes, I am so happy. This would never have happened if I was not.” And I held you.<br/>
“Good news!” I crooned into your soft hair. “Good news.”</p><p> </p><p>  The years grew, an ever creating an ever creating wave of happiness and wealth, dreams and desires... but it all fell down and in the end...</p><p> You were attacked, they though you were a whore for your yellow dress, though you are only complying with the law. The detestable law that the women of my people must wear that color. It was them, the nation, the gentiles, the goyim.</p><p> The day you were going to visit your sister in Rome, and the next I am summoned to your bedside there. I order Lancelot, I tell him to fetch the Jewish doctor, but he is in Genoa. The other doctor cannot be found, he must be somewhere else in the city, hiding.</p><p>For these are hard times, and the blood libel has reared his ugly head. Lancelot would get a Christian doctor, but he will not serve Jews. But I accompany Lancelot, for I am very wealthy and money must convince the the doctor.</p><p>I knock on his door, and he comes out, but his face sours at my red cap and apparel. He will not listen, even as I try to tell him, your symptoms. I offer him ducats, and loans, loans with practically no interest. I offer double the price, triple the price... but he refuses. He will not serve a Jewess, he calls you a name that I will not repeat, and name that reviles you.</p><p>Lancelot bids me come back home, and I do, but it is too late. How could it be?</p><p> It was the moneys. If I had more ducats I could have bought you treatment, and the life would have stayed in your flesh. A diamond lost, and no thief to find and catch, for death is justice and I know no mercy.</p><p>But deep inside I know, I know, why. You were my beautiful wife, but... to the nation you were just another Jew, a whore... Don’t they know that we share in their senses, affections, passions! Fie! I must become them. I must fill in the expectations, or face lamentations. The nation, they hate our humanity, let’s see if they prefer my inhumanity. </p><p>Leah! You leave me with so much, too little. A daughter with no mother, ducats that cannot be invested, a turquoise ring- the symbol of a dead love, a reminder of my- my- anguish?</p><p>What could be left for me now?</p><p> I will never get you back. But I must. I have<br/>
nothing without you. I need more! I need more! </p><p> </p><p>  Jessica! Lo, Jessica! How, now? Why, so? I gave her not enough so she must take! Take and give to the goyim, who forced me and you into these accursed roles!</p><p> Jessica, she that cools my friends and heats my enemies! Ay! I would I had all the ducats she stole... but more so I want her flesh! I do not care, whether her heart is severed!</p><p> Oh, that I have come to this! Leah, your ring, I cannot wear it, it leaves me now that I become... become...</p><p> I am a Jew! All I have is revenge and memories! A temple, a vanquished temple, a vanquished love, my daughter!</p><p> </p><p>  I have nothing. I am no one. Today, I am become a... widower, poor, goy, a barren man and I beg, I beg for mercy!</p><p>And Leah, you are the only one who can give it.</p>
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